Hope to Die
by percychased
Summary: "I'll see you in the future when we're older; and we are full of stories to be told." Molly Weasley wakes up to all white, and two twins she hasn't seen for a very long time, who help her understand that maybe it's time to move on to the other side, because her family is waiting for her.


a/n - Just thinking about Fabian and Gideon and Molly and the twins makes me want to cry. I suggest listening to Your Song by Elton John, which partially inspired this fic, and is also responsible for the lyrics at the top. For the QL, using 2, 5, and 9. I love you all.

* * *

_I know it's not much but_  
_It's the best I can do_  
_My gift is my song and_  
_This one's for you_

* * *

Molly awoke, and it was all white. For one of the first times in her life, she was terrified. Usually she could just feel them, in her heart, a gut instinct... but he couldn't feel her children or her grandchildren, and it was pulling at her heart and her nerves. She felt so _alone._

She was so terrified she wasn't even crying.

Where was her family?

"It's about time you got here."

The voice - voices - sounded familiar. Too familiar. She remembers them. All of the white, it looks like the room in her childhood house, out in Oxfordshire.

"Fabian?" she asks. "Gideon? Am I... am I dreaming?"

They share a look - just like her twin sons used to do and now her head is screaming and her heart is shattering, again. They stand as tall as they can, just like she remembers, hair a bright red and curly, with gleaming blue mischievous eyes. They're almost identical to her set of twins, and she doesn't know what to do.

"It's us, Molly."

She panics, and when Molly Weasley panics, she forgets all reason and logic.

"You two - you're.. _you're dead! _Where am I? I'm sorry...why... where's Arthur?"

"It was never your fault, Molls."

"What do you mean, not my fault?"

But she knows what they mean. Their death, at the Prewett family home, wasn't her fault. Just because she had promised to come have dinner with her brothers and couldn't make it because her infant twins were causing trouble wasn't her fault.

They would have rather her stay safe.

Molly let out a choked sob. "Where am I? Am I?" She felt herself up frantically, and caught sight of her hands.

They were so _smooth. _There wasn't any wrinkles, or the odd little scar on her forefinger. Curiously, she ran her fingers through her hair. It wasn't thin, but soft, curly and long... how she had styled her hair as a young mother.

Fabian and Gideon exchanged a look. "Molly, you're..." They trailed off together.

"What sort of _trickery _have you two pulled on me?"

"Nothing!" insisted Gideon quickly. "Gabian thought -"

"Fideon was saying -"

"Would you two please get on with it?" she said softly. The names, the Gabian and the Fideon - well, that was something she used to hear from her own sons. _Used _being the operative word. That tugged and pulled and pained her in a way it could only hurt a mother. The nostalgia hit home - but just for a moment. It disappeared, because today wasn't a grey day.

"Am I dead?" she asked, not loudly, not angry, not shouting. Very softly and faintly, like she was hoping they wouldn't hear her.

"Yes," said Gideon, and at that moment, everything came rushing back to Molly.

Finding the talking portraits of Gideon and Fabian in the attic, ninety years after the Burrow was built. They teased her grey hair, and comforted her when they learned of their young progeny's early passing over a half of a century ago.

How, for the past six months since George's passing and the three months since her husband's passing, Molly Weasley had been struggling. To get up out of bed each day, and take care of herself, her remaining children, and her grandchildren's children, two of which had been orphaned. How there was no one, anymore, to kiss _her, _to love _her, _because the only one who did that unconditionally, every single night, was gone.

Until she found Fabian and Gideon in the attic.

They told her tales they hadn't dared of telling in the war, a war that had now started over a hundred years ago. Tales of a brotherly bond so strong that perhaps, almost definitely, one of them could have fought back and saved themselves. They shared knowing glances and thoughts and words, but they never shared joking touches or playful shoving.

Now, with the white illuminating all of them, she noticed they stood close together, shoulder to shoulder. Molly wasn't sure whether to weep with happiness or weep with sorrow.

"You've spent long enough suffering," started Fabian, impossibly softly. They looked so young, even younger than before they had died. Around twenty-three, which made Molly twenty-one, about the time she had her first child. Three years out of Hogwarts, young and just beginning her life. It seemed so long ago.

"Your twins and husband are waiting for you, Molly," said Gideon, smiling softly. "I'm proud of the men they have become."

_I'm proud of the men they have become. _She isn't sure whether she's ever heard her elder brothers say they were _proud._

"Your other children will do alright," continued Fabian. After all of these years - nearly around a century since they died, because she was well over one-hundred - and they still insisted on doing that. She tried to bite back a smile.

"They know it's your time, and soon enough, they will join you," said Gideon.

Until now, they hadn't touched her. Fabian approached his sister, who looked as young and beautiful as ever, and let his fingers brush across her shoulder and tug on a piece of her violently bright red hair.

Molly let out some sort of strangled sob and embraced her brother, who calmly patted her back. Their eyes connected, a bond still strong over time, in the white of post-death.

"Here is where everything's safe and everything's better."

-_fin_


End file.
